


Objects in the Mirror May Be Closer Than They Appear (The Didn't See That Coming Dance Mix)

by victoria_p (musesfool)



Category: Push (2009)
Genre: 5 Things, F/M, Human Experimentation, Implied Torture, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-21
Updated: 2012-04-21
Packaged: 2017-11-04 02:17:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/388597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Nick surprised Cassie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Objects in the Mirror May Be Closer Than They Appear (The Didn't See That Coming Dance Mix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Medie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Blind Spot](https://archiveofourown.org/works/143287) by [Medie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie). 



> Thanks to my awesome beta, DevilDoll. There is some content that might be disturbing regarding medical experimentation on humans.

i.

They hobble back to Nick's apartment just long enough for him to grab his things. He doesn't take much, hunches over in pain while she shoves a clean pair of jeans and some underwear (she hopes that's clean too but tries not to think too hard about it) into a ratty olive duffel bag he pulls out from under the bed. 

Division thinks they're dead for the moment, and she wants to keep them thinking that for as long as possible, so Cassie talks them into a room at a youth hostel with a story about how their luggage and most of their money's been stolen and she's not a pusher but she's gotten pretty good at talking people into doing what she wants them to do (example number one is leaning half against her and half against the reception desk) and throwing money at them when talking doesn't work.

So they get the last room at the hostel, even though they have to share a bathroom with twelve German backpackers and a couple of French lesbians who are having sex in the shower when Cassie walks in.

"Sorry," she says, not bothering to avert her eyes as she wets down a washcloth before slipping out of the room.

Nick's already passed out on the bed, didn't even take his shoes off, and his feet hang off the end and his arms dangle over the sides. It can't be comfortable, but he doesn't seem to notice as he mutters and mashes his face into the pillow. She should have known it would be a single, and that he'd hog the whole thing, but she's just so _tired_ now that the rush of beating Division and Pop Girl has worn off. Still, she feels bad, because he's basically spent the past two days getting the shit kicked out of him, and while part of that is just because he's _Nick_ , part of that is her fault. So she unlaces his sneakers, wrinkling her nose at the way the laces are still wet. 

He rolls over and grunts. "Hey," he says. "Let me." She moves out of the way and lets him toe them off now that they're untied. "Thanks."

"Sure," she says. "No problem."

He pushes himself up on one elbow and looks at her. Really looks at her in that weird Nick way of his that makes her face get hot. And then he shifts onto his side and crooks his fingers at her. "C'mere."

"What?"

"Come here."

"What? No. I'm just gonna--" Cassie looks around, but there's a folding chair and a flimsy desk and nothing else in the room. 

"I'm tired," he says, "but I can't sleep with you standing there looking all woeful." He crooks his fingers again, and this time she can feel the brush of his power against the hem of her skirt and the skin of her thighs. 

She shivers and sighs. One thing watching has taught her is that there's always a point where you have to just give in to the inevitable, and she's really not interested in finding out whether he's honed his gift enough to actually move her where he wants her. 

"Fine." 

He's large and warm and solid, and she has to wedge herself against him to fit. He drapes an arm over her waist and his breath tickles the back of her neck. He smells like sweat and blood and maybe she's fucked up, but she thinks it's kind of comforting, and she's tired enough that the exhaustion cuts through the weirdness of sharing the bed with him long enough for her to fall asleep.

The sun is bright when she wakes up and the bed is empty, and she's not surprised that he's gone but she is a little disappointed. (She won't admit to being more than a little hurt.) She was starting to think they were a pretty good team. 

Nick comes through the door while she's still blinking sleep out of her eyes, his hair still dripping water onto his t-shirt, staining it dark. 

"How much time to do you need?"

Cassie blinks slowly at him. "For what?"

"To get washed and packed?"

"Oh, yeah. Gimme ten minutes." She can do it in five if she doesn't change, but she's been wearing the same underwear for three days now and it's gross.

They catch the first flight out of Hong Kong, don't even check where it's going, and Cassie thinks she could get used to this, to having him around, and then she reminds herself not to. She hasn't had a vision since the tiger, and she doesn't try. She sleeps with her head on Nick's shoulder and when she wakes up, they're in Bangkok.

She keeps expecting him to ditch her, but a few days turns into a few weeks, and six months later, they're still together. She's seen both of them die a few times, but she still hasn't seen him leave.

*

ii.

Eight months later, they're in Mexico City when Cassie has the vision. 

"Kira's here," she says. "She's looking for us." 

Nick's jaw clenches and his forehead scrunches up tight, but all he says is, "What do you see?"

Tense, unhappy faces. A kiss. A fight. Either or both--Cassie can't tell, and the vision doesn't get any clearer, but she doesn't need to be a watcher to see it's the end of their partnership. 

She keeps trying, but it's always the same--Kira smiling, Nick angry, kissing. 

(Nick spent the morning they landed in Bangkok tearing through the stuff she'd packed for him, and then her stuff, and then his stuff again, looking for something, but he wouldn't say what, and Cassie'd stopped asking after a while.)

Now, he says, "It was all a push."

"What?"

"Kira, me, Coney Island."

Cassie laughs so hard she snorts soda out her nose, which stings. "Uh, no, it wasn't."

"I had a picture of us from Coney Island. I kept it in my wallet. But it's not there. It's not anywhere. Because it wasn't real."

"She did a number on you, all right."

"I told you--"

"She didn't push you, Nick. Though she did mess with your head, I guess." Cassie puts her soda down and leans her elbows on the table, cradling her chin with her hands. She ducks her head to catch his gaze, makes him look her in the eye so he'll know she's telling the truth. "She came to Hong Kong looking for you. She had to have known you before, because Pop Girl and I both saw you as the connection to her, and so did Carver's watchers."

"But the picture--"

"You probably put it in her envelope." Cassie shrugs, more casual than she feels, because this is something he's been keeping from her, and that hurts more than she expected. Especially if he's only been staying with her because he thinks Kira doesn't want him. "You didn't let me see what you wrote to her, though."

"Then why hasn't she gotten back in touch before now?"

"She was probably pushed. Or have you forgotten what Carver could do?" They'd gotten the news that he was dead, of course, along with the news that Kira'd disappeared, but nobody knew anything more than that, or if they did, they hadn't shared it with her.

He grunts but doesn't seem any happier, and Cassie has no idea how to fix that, but as much as she hates the idea, maybe Kira will.

Cassie tells Hook to tell Kira to meet them on the observation deck of the Torre Latinoamericana. Cassie likes the view from up high. 

Kira's there when they arrive, because Cassie's Spanish is only slightly better than Nick's, and they'd gotten lost on the way, snapping at each other because of the tension. Cassie doesn't want this to be her memory of their last day together, but she can't help it, because she's hurt and scared and that always comes out as angry and smart-mouthed, and he's the one who got off at the wrong stop, anyway. He's the one who's going to leave.

Kira takes two steps towards them and then stops, head cocked inquisitively. She reminds Cassie of a bird--delicate bones and pretty feathers, and talons sharp enough to kill. 

"It's good to see you," she says. She doesn't take her eyes off Nick, who's returning the favor pretty intensely. 

The two of them just stare longingly at each other for a few seconds that feel endless to Cassie. She taps her foot and clears her throat, but the staring just keeps going. 

Finally, Cassie asks, "What happened to you?"

Kira shrugs but doesn't look away from Nick. "I opened the note you wrote." She fumbles with something in her purse and then pulls out a snapshot. _The_ snapshot, from what Cassie can see. "I guess this belongs to you."

Nick looks at it for a long moment before he takes it. "Yeah. I--Thanks." Cassie can see reality realigning itself in his head--he's not crazy, he hasn't been pushed, but she wonders if it isn't too late now.

"How did you get away?" Cassie asks, starting to walk along the gallery. She looks out at the amazing views so she doesn't have to watch the two of them be awkward or make out. She's already seen enough of both in her visions.

"I pushed Carver," Kira says. "I walked away when the plane landed and I haven't looked back since."

"And why did you start now?" Nick asks. His voice is low and rough. 

"I thought it was safer. I heard the Division section in Buenos Aires was destroyed. Pinky said you'd had something to do with that."

"Cassie's mother was supposed to be there," Nick says. "But she wasn't."

"Oh." Kira looks at Cassie then for the first time. "I didn't know--I didn't expect--" She huffs a soft, sharp laugh. "Cassie, do you mind if Nick and I--" 

Nick wraps an arm around Cassie's shoulders and pulls her in against his side, squeezing a little harder than necessary. "We're a package deal these days," he says. 

Kira blinks once and nods. She looks as startled as Cassie feels. "Of course. Of course. I didn't think." She clutches at the strap of her purse and smiles tightly. "Why don't you let me treat you to lunch?"

They're halfway through the tense meal when Cassie gets hit with a vision. "Division sniffs," she says. "On their way."

"We should go," Nick says, his fingers curling tight around Cassie's wrist. "Kira?"

"It's not safe," she replies. "It's me they're after." Another tight smile, and then she's leaning over and kissing Nick goodbye. Cassie looks away. "We won't see each other again."

"I know," he answers. "Good luck."

"Stay safe," she says, already turning and pushing the people in the restaurant to forget they ever saw her.

Nick drags Cassie to the nearest train station, and even though they're leaving all their stuff behind, for once, she doesn't argue.

*

iii.

They're in Zurich when Cassie sees them coming--she's sitting in a salon, having her hair bobbed--but there's nothing she can do to stop them. She's knocked out in a hotel room in Prague and she wakes up in a Division cell in--she has no idea where. They don't tell her these things, and the ID badges are all in a language she barely recognizes and doesn't understand.

The first few weeks are the easiest--she still believes Nick is coming for her, that he's not going to leave her to be tortured and taken apart. They question her endlessly--does she know what he's planning, can she see where he is? Have his powers increased from taking the R16? She laughs because they don't know. They still don't know.

But she still misses things sometimes, still gets them wrong, and she can't see Nick at all. She figures he's with Pinky, so she can't give away his daring rescue plan. 

After the fifth week, she's too tired to keep sassing them, sticks to yes and no answers. They promise to let her see her mom if she tells them where Kira is, and by the eighth week she's willing to make that trade, but she doesn't know.

She loses track of time after that, because they've moved onto the heavy drugs, and she thinks maybe they bring in a wiper after each session, so she doesn't know anymore what she's told them and what she hasn't. 

"Listen," says the lady in charge, her sharp features not softened at all by the pale pink lipstick she wears or the pretty blonde curls that frame her face, but her eyes, oh, her blue eyes turn black when she says, "Nick is dead. There's no point in keeping his secrets anymore."

Cassie can't fight the truth, can't fight death. She loses it then, the entire thread, because if Nick is dead, then no one is coming for her. No one even knows she exists anymore, so she might as well just give up. 

Time ceases to have meaning. She eats what they put in front of her and draws what they tell her to see. They don't offer to let her see her mother anymore.

They strap her down on a gurney and inject her with something that isn't Nine Dragons soy sauce and she wakes up in a panic, struggling against her restraints. After that, she only sees the future until she slowly teaches herself how to block it out, how to focus on the way the strap cuts into her wrist and the itch on her nose that she can't reach when they tie her down. The way the hair on her legs is fine and silky now that she hasn't shaved in months and it's grown out, as pale as the hair on her head, which is down past her shoulders again and snags when they attach the electrodes to her temples. The industrial bleach smell and soft, worn feel of the scrubs she wears, no ties and no metal closures on them to give her any ideas. 

She's focusing on the torn skin of the cuticle on her right thumb, the way blood wells up in a bright red bead, how it tastes like salt and copper, when an explosion rocks the facility. She reaches out, sees men rushing through the wreckage, their faces blurry and obscured somehow.

The door to her cell unlocks, and she thinks about escaping, but can't see it leading anywhere good--barrel of a gun pressed to her temple, arm that smells like sweat and smoke hooked around her throat as she's dragged back into her cell, and then more needles, the rough straps cutting into her skin\--and then the door slams itself open and Nick is standing there.

"Cassie? Cassie? Are you all right?" 

"You can't be here," she says. "You're dead. They showed me your body." She remembers the grotesque angle of his neck, the blood trickling from his nose, staining the corners of his mouth.

"I'm not dead," he says. "Cassie, I'm alive." He grabs her upper arms, pulls her tight against him, and she can feel the solid heat of his body, smell sweat and smoke and soap, feel his breath stirring her hair as he kisses the top of her head, and then the warm press of his lips against her forehead. She presses her ear against his chest, hears the beat of his heart, loud and rapid. 

"I waited for you to come, but you didn't."

"I'm sorry, Cassie. I'm so, so sorry." His beard is rough and soft against her skin and her tears are warm on her cheeks. These are things she can feel without seeing. "But I'm here now. I'm right here."

She lets him pull her along behind him, stumbling over rubble and around bodies in her slipper-socks. He lets go once, so he can get rid of two bleeders blocking a hallway, and she starts to hyperventilate. Maybe she's hallucinating. She doesn't know what drugs they gave her, she just knows that she saw his body, broken and bleeding, and now he's here and--

"I don't know what's real anymore," she says, reaching out.

"I am," he tells her, taking her hand and putting it over his heart for a moment. Then he slings her over his shoulder so he has one hand free to clear a path, the rainbow flash of his power shoving everything out of their way.

Cassie passes out. 

She comes to in the back of a van with Nick hovering over her. "Cassie? Cassie? Are you with me?"

She smiles, lifting a hand to cup his face, his beard tickling her palm. "Yes," she says. "I am."

*

iv.

At first, Cassie still has trouble remembering Nick's not dead, so she follows him everywhere, touching him if she can, even if it's just a finger through his belt loop, though usually he keeps a hand on the small of her back or her shoulder, easy, comforting touches that remind her he's alive, he's real, and this isn't a vision.

He's worried that she'll have the same problem Kira did, that she'll need Division drugs to keep her alive after the injection, but Cassie doesn't care.

"I'm not going back there," she says.

"If it's a choice between you dying and you going back--"

"I'd rather die." She presses her face to his chest so he can't give her those big earnest eyes that make her want to do whatever he says. He's not a pusher, but with his face, he doesn't need to be.

His arms tighten around her. "I can't let that happen."

She sighs and lets him believe he has the choice.

But after the first couple of weeks of withdrawal from whatever cocktail of drugs they had her on, Cassie is fine. She's still not used to this new version of herself: her legs are longer, her breasts fuller, her face thinner. It attracts too much attention. She thinks she might have liked that once, before her time as a lab rat, but now it just makes her anxious when people turn to look at her on the street. She hides it as much as she can, but as oblivious as Nick pretends to be, she's pretty sure he knows.

She tries not to anticipate the future too much; she knows more than anyone that it's constantly changing, and concrete plans are for people who don't know how much control they (don't) have over how the future turns out. But still, she starts planting the seeds early.

In Beijing: "I like that scarf, Nick. You should buy it for me. My birthday's in four months." 

In Florence: "This pendant is pretty, Nick. You should buy it for me. My birthday's in three months."

In Munich: "Admit it, Nick, you want to buy me this BMW. My birthday's in two months."

He laughs each time and shakes his head. "I'm looking for the perfect gift," he says, "and that's not it."

But in Paris when she says, "These boots are amazing, Nick. You should buy them for me. A girl only turns sixteen once," he doesn't laugh.

"Cassie, you're going to be seventeen."

"I--What?" She stops in front of him, still wearing the boots, and glares at him for not knowing the basic facts of her life after she's spent months trying to drill them into his head.

He gives her a long, searching look. "You turned sixteen while you were in Division."

She shivers at the chill that runs down her spine, and looks away. "Oh."

He stands, then, and cups her chin gently. In the boots, she's nearly as tall as he is, which is weird. "Cass, Cassie, look at me."

Whatever inspirational thing he's going to say is lost in the vision she has. She stumbles into him, and he holds her up while the images flash before her eyes, too fast to make sense of: a Division scientist, men in fatigues, an alligator, an airboat.

When she comes back to herself, she's sitting in his lap and he's stroking her hair and saying her name frantically.

She forces herself to smile brightly. "How do you feel about Florida?"

"You want to go to Disney World?"

Her laugh sounds shaky and rough, even to her own ears. "Something like that."

His answering smile is small and she can see the worry in his eyes. "I'll see what I can do."

They stop off in Miami first, because Nick knows a guy who knows a guy who runs an underground casino, because of course he does, and their supply of cash is running out. 

Cassie stays with Nick at the roulette wheel while he wins every so often, not enough to make people suspicious but enough to finance their trip (and maybe buy her the birthday present he hasn't gotten her yet, though he did buy the boots after the scene they made in the shop). They move to the craps table and she blows on his dice, looking up at him through her lashes, but he doesn't seem to notice; his attention's all on the game. It's boring, so she takes some of his winnings and wanders away.

There's a high stakes poker game in another room, and she lets herself be cajoled into playing by a couple of mojitos and a cute Cuban boy, knowing they only let her join the game because they think she's going to be easy to fleece. She closes her eyes and sees every move each player is going to make--Manuel, on her left, is going to take two, hoping to draw to an inside straight; DeSean is going to take three and bluff on his opening pair of jacks; Carlito, her cute Cuban boy, is going to stand pat with his natural full house--eights over threes; and Fernando, next to him, is going to fold. 

She sees enough to know when she can win and when she should fold, and she's up about ten grand when the trouble starts. There's shouting in the front room and all the men get up from the table, guns drawn. Cassie peers out from around Manuel to see Nick using his stilted Spanish to try to convince the croupier that he hasn't done anything wrong. Because Nick still doesn't know how to quit while he's ahead. 

"He cheats," the croupier tells Fernando, who nods once and tilts his head towards the back door. Three men in wraparound sunglasses and shoulder holsters appear out of the crowd and start hustling Nick away.

Nick catches her eye and gives her a wink and reckless grin that makes her stomach drop. Then he punches out with his power and two of the three thugs go flying. The fighting spreads as games are disrupted and chips go flying everywhere. The guns come out in earnest, then, and Cassie doesn't think--she runs towards Nick, sure they can escape in the confusion, and too terrified of losing him to be able to see what happens next.

She stumbles, still not used to the heels on the boots, and the guns turn on her. Nick shouts her name, the only thing she hears clearly over the fighting, and then he's there in front of her, keeping the bullets away with the wave of his hand. 

He wraps his other arm around her shoulders and steers her out the back door. When they hit the parking lot, he punches out the window on a Toyota and she hotwires it as fast as she can before shoving over so he can drive them away.

"What the hell were you doing?" she yells as soon as they're far enough away for her to feel comfortable that they're not being chased yet. 

"What the hell was _I_ doing? What the hell were _you_ doing?" he shouts back, taking his eyes off the road long enough to glare at her. "Whatever it was, don't ever do that again."

"I was trying to save you."

"By running into a hail of bullets? What the fuck?" His face is pale and gleaming in the strobing of the highway lights. "How did you not see that coming?"

"I--" She raises a hand and drops it helplessly. "I don't see everything," she says, hotly, fear and adrenaline making her burn for a fight. It's then she notices the dark stain on his shirt isn't sweat and all the anger drains out of her. "You've been shot."

He grimaces. "I was hoping you wouldn't notice."

"Dumbass." She says it fondly, though.

"Is that any way to talk to the guy who just took a bullet for you?"

"Nick, I--"

"I know." He gives her a weak grin. "Happy birthday?"

The laugh that bubbles up in response sounds more like a sob. She chokes it back and tries to smile. She just has to hold it together until they get somewhere safe. Or safe enough, anyway.

They ditch the car in the long-term parking lot at the airport and then take the hotel shuttle to the Days Inn. Nick is white as a sheet, and he passes out as soon as he hits the bed, which is a blessing as far as Cassie is concerned. She hates that she knows how to dig a bullet out of his arm and patch him up, hates that she has to do it because he was protecting her.

She gives him a Vicodin from their small supply of drugs and lies awake in bed next to him, staring at the ceiling. She remembers her mother telling her that strong emotions could lead to blind spots, that it was harder to see about the people you cared about most, and Cassie had, at the ripe old age of ten, sworn she would never let anyone but her mom get that close. She shifts away from Nick, as if putting six inches of physical distance between them will help, but she knows it's already far too late.

*

v.

Cassie's standing in front of the mirror brushing her hair when Nick comes into the room. 

"Hey," he says, putting a cardboard drink tray on the table. "I got you that girlie coffee you like."

They've been in Maine for a week, holed up in a bed and breakfast, pretending they're there for the fall foliage. Cassie's glad for the respite; she's been feeling worn around the edges since Miami, always aware of how quickly things can go bad for them, and tired of not seeing an end to their running any time soon, and of having to leave everything behind when they do. Well, not everything.

She turns around and smiles. "Thanks." She holds out her hand, but instead of giving her the drink, Nick curls his fingers around hers and pulls her in close. With his other hand, he cups her face, tipping her chin up so he can kiss her. 

Cassie closes her eyes and opens her mouth, touching her tongue to his when he slips it between her lips. She sways into him and lets him hold her up as they kiss. He wraps an arm around her, tangles his other hand in her hair, murmuring soft words against her lips, her cheek, her temple. They don't make any sense but she understands, whispers them back in awed and pleased surprise. 

This is one of the things she's fantasized about (a lot, though she'll never admit it) since she was thirteen, but nothing she ever saw actually happening.

She presses down on his shoulders and twines her legs around his hips and he carries her back to the bed. She's still wearing the t-shirt she slept in, and he pulls it up over her head and then leans back and looks at her in that intense Nick way of his, and she has to fight the urge to cover herself with her hands. 

"God, you're beautiful," he says before he kisses her again, his hands coming up to cup her breasts. 

She gasps into his mouth when he thumbs her nipples, hips pushing up off the bed in pleasure. He hums, pleased, and then ducks his head so he can lick and suck his way down her body. His mouth is a revelation, and she arches up against it when he shoulders her knees apart so he can go down, his tongue fucking in and out of her cunt and then swirling over her clit. Pleasure burns through her, making her whole body feel heavy and hot and weightless at the same time, like she's floating. 

He slides inside while she's still coming down, and she gasps at the stretch, the feeling of fullness. He holds himself up on his elbows above her and waits. 

"Oh," she says. "Oh, Nick." She pushes up and clamps down around him and he groans, burying his face in the crook of her neck. "Nick," she says again. "Nick, look at me."

He raises his face, hips still moving, and opens his eyes, a thin ring of blue clear around his pupils. He gives her the sweetest smile she's ever seen. "Hi."

Cassie laughs. "You are such a dork."

He laughs, too. "Maybe, but I'm a dork who can do this." He shifts her hips up and thrusts deeper, and Cassie doesn't have enough breath left to laugh, because her whole body is shivering with sensation. He kisses her, wet and messy and deep, and she can taste herself on his tongue. She holds him when he comes with a low moan and a shudder, deep inside her, and then he uses his fingers to finish her off, the second orgasm slower and deeper and not a surprise this time, but no less satisfying for all that.

She wants to hold him close forever, but finally he rolls off her and flops back against the pillows with a satisfied grunt. 

She turns her head to look at him, unable to keep the stupid goofy smile off her face. "Huh. Didn't see that coming."

He blinks, surprised. "Really?"

"You know I don't see everything."

"Yeah, but--This is a good thing." His forehead furrows in a frown. "It _is_ a good thing, right?"

"Yeah. Yes. But--" She rolls onto her side so she can look directly at him. "Sometimes we develop blind spots. Watchers, I mean. About people we care about. About ourselves." Nick tugs her closer, so she can lay her head on his chest. She can feel him nuzzling her hair, and it makes it easier for her to keep talking, telling him things she's never told anyone. "The stronger the emotions are, the harder it is to see."

"So you didn't see us hooking up because--Aw, Cassie, that's adorable." He can't quite pull off the teasing tone he's going for--the hitch in his breathing gives him away. She finds it reassuring, because it means he probably feels the same. 

She slings a leg over his hip and slides on top of him, enjoying the way his body responds to hers. She folds her arms on his chest and leans in close. "But I need to learn how to see these things anyway."

"I know you don't like surprises," he says, "but this was a good one." He tangles a hand in her hair and pulls her in for a long, slow kiss that makes her whole body quiver with desire, but she needs to make him understand. 

"Yes, but I can't take another situation like Miami. I should have seen that and I didn't, and you got shot."

"Cass, Cassie, you can't see everything. And I'm really good at not making any decisions a watcher can track. I've spent most of my life doing it."

"But I know you--I've known you for almost six years now, and I watched you for years before that."

"That's not creepy at all."

She slaps his shoulder lightly. "Shut up."

"No, seriously. I'm really glad you didn't see this when you were thirteen. That's a little too Lolita for me."

"Okay, that's a good point, but still. I need to be better."

"You're already the best and you're barely eighteen," he says. "You see things no one else has, Cassie. Your art is still terrible, but your watching is topnotch."

She wriggles against him, feels him getting hard against her belly. "You really know how to compliment a girl."

"What can I say? I'm kind of awesome."

"All right," she says, laughing and rolling her hips, "why don't you show me how awesome again?" She leans up and kisses him again. Trouble's on the horizon, and she's going to make sure she sees it coming, but there's time for them, too, and she's going to make the most of it. 

end


End file.
